


Treading Softly

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-08
Updated: 2010-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:57:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treading Softly

**Author's Note:**

> Set very early in Season One. Written for a challenge at JackDanielpromptfic at Dreamwidth

Off-world missions that ended in firefights generally did one of two things to Jack. The adrenaline rush and subsequent deficit either made him want to harm Daniel severely -  Daniel, who, half a dozen missions in still hadn’t come to terms with discretion being the better part of valor ­­­ ­-  or it made Jack want to fuck him.

Sometimes he wanted to do both.

It was some choice Jack faced. Act on one and he’d have a pissy Daniel and a pissier Carter in his face for the rest of the day. Act on two and the walls would come tumbling down on his career, probably his life, and certainly his unlikely but necessary friendship with Daniel.

He’d been reasonable and matter-of-fact in the initial post-mission debriefing, laid out his thoughts on why the fuck Daniel needed to learn to keep his mouth shut from time to time. He’d been rational, level-headed, calm. Perfect mentor to his still novice civilian team member. Inside, he’d been fucking raging and so turned on that an accidental brush with the edge of the briefing room table almost resulted in a very private fantasy coming true.

Fuck Daniel Jackson. Fuck his very personal idealism, his innate sense of right and wrong, passion for justice, seductive intellect and boundless thirst for knowledge. And fuck, fuck, _fuck _his captivating blue eyes, body that was just this side of too soft for Jack’s taste, and a smile that made Jack want to shower him with a tenderness that shocked and disturbed him.

Tenderness wasn’t in his lexicon. Not since the day he left a hospital covered in his son’s blood and his wife’s tears.

Screw tenderness. Screw Daniel Jackson. And there was the thing. He wanted to. So badly that he ached with it. He shoved it down, buried it beneath layers of protocol and military discipline. Occasional rough, no-questions-asked fucks with nameless, faceless, hard bodies in motel rooms ... that he could live with. Tender, gentle, emotion-laden loving was so far off his radar it didn’t register.

Until Daniel fucking Jackson.

Fighting post-mission exhaustion and that gnawing, sharp spike of arousal that seemed to accompany it these days, Jack shucked dusty BDUs and slammed his locker door shut, anxious to stop thinking about what might have been if just one of those alien weapon blasts had hit one of his team. He picked up his shampoo, soap and towel from the bench and headed for the showers.

Daniel was already in there, standing with his back to Jack as he entered. And holy mother of God what a sleazy porn movie cliché the man presented – feet slightly apart, butt taut, the water cascading down his back and ass, then on down long, lightly-furred legs that went on forever. Jesus. He would _not _get a hard-on here.

Jack entered the shower stall next to Daniel’s, turned on the water and set it three notches cooler than he would have liked. Best to take precautions. Didn’t want SG-3 to descend and find him sporting the kind of boner that he could feel lay in waiting.

The water felt good. He turned his face up into the spray and let it start to relax him. He reached for the soap and lathered his chest, avoiding touching his nipples – always a hotspot and he didn’t need any extra triggers. Then he soaped under his arms. And then he tried not to think of Daniel doing the same thing. More than anything, Jack wanted to lick and kiss under Daniel’s arms, bury his nose in the clean sweat until Jack smelled of nothing but Daniel.

Jack wondered if he dared soap his dick and balls. Just the thought of his fingers touching his shaft and brushing his sac was getting him half-hard. So he didn’t. He washed his hair instead, and ignored the slight gasping sound that came from next door when Daniel tilted his head back and let the water run down his face as he finished washing his own hair.

Jack wanted to make Daniel gasp for an entirely different reason. Wanted to hold him while he stroked into him in long, deep, adoring thrusts.

Christ. He was screwed.

“I guess I should thank you,” Daniel said, suddenly, raising his voice over the noise of the showers.

Jack pushed his hands through his hair, felt the suds sloughing down his back. “For what?”

Daniel turned the water off. “Not reaming me out in public. I’m trying, Jack.”

“Damn right you are.” It was a knee-jerk, smart-ass response and Jack recognized it as such, but it didn’t stop him.

“I’m _trying,”_ Daniel said with exaggerated patience, “to rein myself in. I know I ... rush in where angels fear to tread sometimes. I, um, I care a lot, about things. It’s not always the easiest way to be. I know I’m part of a team now. I’m learning what that means. Trying to.” He reached for his towel and started rubbing his hair dry. It settled into salon-chic disarray. Jack wanted to run his hands though the long strands and smooth them against his skull. Wanted to cradle that precious skull in his hands and shake it, knock some sense into him before kissing him senseless.

“We’re all learning,” Jack said, a little grudgingly. “As some wise-ass once said, ‘There’s no ‘I’ in team.’”

“There is ‘me’ though. In team, I mean,” Daniel quipped, a little too glibly for Jack’s liking. Quick. He was quick. Quick-thinking bastard.

“Yes. Well. All for one. Yadda. Just ... try not to get yourself killed.” _I couldn’t stand that. _“Or any of us for that matter.”

Jack closed his eyes and wallowed in the last few seconds of muscle-relaxing bliss before switching the water off. The silence, when the shower stopped, was deafening. He stood there, eyes still closed, images of droplets coursing down Daniel’s body burning the darkness. He closed his eyes more tightly, until white stars danced and exploded.

He tried to replace his vision of a wet Daniel with the last guy he fucked in a cheap motel in the ass-end of nowhere. But he couldn’t remember him. Only the empty, meaningless orgasm that was ripped from him after a few frantic minutes of soulless coupling.

By the time he opened his eyes, Daniel had wandered back to the locker room. Jack blew out a deep breath, shook his head. He needed to get a handle on this.

Daniel was wrangling his hair into submission, towel tied firmly around his waist, when Jack joined him. Daniel hadn’t made a good job of towelling off. Jack watched a single drop of water escape from his hair, run down his sideburn and drip slowly onto his collarbone. The urge to lick it off was overwhelming.

Jack turned away. He couldn’t look anymore. Couldn’t open himself to feelings he’d clamped down on so hard. Couldn’t believe that this man, _this_ man, was unsettling him to this extent. He dropped his towel – self-discipline won out, no hard-on – and fished his shirt and chinos out of his locker.

“I  asked Sam and Teal’c if they wanted to grab a pizza in town. You know, get me out of temp quarters. The walls kind of start closing in after a while,” Daniel said, pulling on a shapeless sweatshirt and cord pants. Carter really needed to take him shopping. Daniel smiled a slightly wry smile that turned up the corner of his mouth in the cutest way. “But they’re busy with ... stuff. Would you, um ...?”

The look he gave Jack was devastating in its vulnerability and Jack was reminded with a painful jolt that the man was alone. No parents, no family, a lost wife. He was possibly a loner, possibly not. But there was a vast difference between enjoying your own company and being forced to endure your own company through lack of alternative. Jack had known both states of being in his time. He had acquaintances by the dozen. Friends – real friends – you could count on one hand.

“Sure. Why not?” Jack adjusted the collar of his leather jacket and sat on the bench to tie his shoelaces. “I’m not sharing though. Last time, you got one with pineapple on. Which is just wrong.”

Something deep inside Jack shifted, something cracked open just a little when Daniel smiled in delight and, Jack suspected, relief, at his acceptance.

Christ. This man was dangerous. Physical attraction he could deal with. Maybe. Emotional attraction was a different animal altogether.

Jack slammed the locker shut with a loud clunk. He needed to lock up his feelings for Daniel Jackson just as forcefully.

But everyone needs a friend. And right now, Jack could be what Daniel needed.

It was enough.

It had to be.


End file.
